Secrets and Lies
by Authoress-in-training
Summary: He supposed it wasn't all that much of a shock...  She was Nikita's type, after all.


**Author's Note: First of all, how amazingly epic was "Echoes"? I just about _died_ watching that kiss. YEESSSSSSSSSSS! MIKITA FOR THE WIN! And the end? Three words - O M G. Whoa. This is insane. I can't believe they're making us wait a whole freaking month for the next episode! (And if this isn't the season finale, I'm a bit scared as to what's going to be in the _actual_ season finale...)**

**Okay, enough with my rant about "Echoes". So back during the December hiatus, I started brainstorming a story - which I entitled Twisted - about what would happen if Michael figured out that Alex was the mole after "All The Way" but didn't say anything. I imagined it as a sort of re-telling of the second half of the season, with added plot twists along the way based off of the ones they threw at us. And then I started writing it, and it came out well. But because I wanted to wait until I'd seen a handful of episodes (to know if my idea would even be possible, since I came up with it before "Free" even aired), I ended up not having anything post-ready until this week. Then I decided to post last night, after "Echoes", when everyone always scrambles onto fanfiction looking for new stories. (Lol, I know how to work the system...)**

**Well, as I've mentioned above, "Echoes" was insanely amazingly awesomely fantastic... _but_ it threw a big ol' wrench in my plans for Twisted. Try as I might, I could not get my brain to wrap itself around this new twist and how to make it work, the way I did with the others so far. So all my hard work and planning went right down the drain. (I wasn't complaining too much, though - not with that amazing Mikita kiss and the jaw-dropping end...)**

**Then this morning, I tried to figure out if there was anything I could salvage. Because Twisted was seriously some of my best work to date - or at least, the first chapter was. And then it hit me - scrap together little bits from all that I wrote, and turn it into an AU oneshot! So here we have it - the salvaged first chapter of my original idea for Twisted.**

**Like I said, Twisted would have been an AU re-telling the second half of the season if Michael knew Alex was the mole and didn't say anything. Very Michael-centric, which I had a lot of fun writing.**

**Alright, I know you're probably sick of listening to me talk already, so I'll get off the screen and let you read. Enjoy!**

* * *

Getting shot really sucked.

It didn't happen to Michael very much these days – or at least, it didn't used to, before Nikita returned – but when it did, it just plain sucked. Weeks of being out of commission, stuck in headquarters doing menial tasks until you were cleared by the doctors for field work again… it was enough to drive someone like Michael, who thrived on the active part of being an agent, absolutely insane. Especially lately, Division had begun to feel more and more like a prison cell; being out in the real world, however little time he got to spend unburdened by Percy's latest chore, cleared his head immensely. Besides, Medical smelled like rubbing alcohol and pineapple air freshener. (Apparently, some things were inescapable, even in Division headquarters – like the stench of hospitals.)

Like always whenever he found himself with down time, Michael's thoughts inevitably turned to his most recent mission – in this case, the Zoman op. (Of course, it wasn't really _his_ mission, but after taking a bullet for it, he highly thought he'd earned the right to categorize it as so.)

He ran through the events of the day in his mind over and over again. Somewhere in this very building, he knew, Nikita was being interrogated by Percy and Amanda. The thought of her being so close, yet as always so far out of his reach was enough to set his blood on fire.

Time after time, they had done battle, but it always ended the same way: both walking away relatively unscathed. They were trapped in a vicious circle, and sometimes he wondered if it would _ever_ end – if they would just keep circling each other until the end of time, neither ever having the courage to pull the trigger.

Thoughts of Nikita inevitably led to thinking about the other female presence in his life (Amanda not included) – Alex. In this case, though, they were not so far apart.

He was worried about her, yes. Despite the enormous coup she'd somehow pulled off in subduing Nikita, the facts still stood that she had failed to complete her mission. And Division – Percy – wasn't big on second chances.

Speak of the devil… "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine, I–" She paused, her eyes falling on the ugly yellow bandages on his leg. With concern evident in her eyes, she stepped closer, examining the wound.

"It's… through and through. I got lucky." He winced, though it didn't exactly mesh with his attempts to reassure her. Sometimes it was hard to remember that Alex was still just barely an adult – that despite everything Division was molding her to become, she was still young, still partially innocent. "Listen, have they debriefed you yet?" he asked, getting right down to the real reason he'd asked to see her.

"No."

"When they do, tell them your gun jammed."

He could see her thought process; it was written clear as day on her face, something she really should learn to control. "But they heard–"

"They didn't hear anything. _Tell them your gun jammed_. Do you understand me?" She stared at him for a moment, then slowly nodded. "Good." As she turned around and started to leave, a thought occurred to him. "Alex." She stopped. "How did you get away after she grabbed you in the house?"

There was a long, pregnant pause, and to Michael, that hesitation was as informative as anything she might've said next. "I didn't." Turning around to face him again, she continued. "She heard you coming towards the shed; she dropped me to grab her gun. That's when I made my move."

He stared into her eyes, leveling her with his gaze. After a tense, silent moment, she turned to leave again. This time, he let her go.

Alex was smart, she was strong, and she had killer instincts. She knew how to fight, and she understood when tactics other than brute force would be necessary. He knew that Percy liked to compare her to Nikita, and with all the facts laid out on paper, he supposed it wasn't so far off. But privately, Michael _loathed_ the very thought. There was no "Nikita 2.0"; she was one of a kind, as was Alex.

Their conversation, though, had left a bad taste in his mouth, and it didn't take long to for Michael to figure out why. Alex wasn't telling him something, but it was more than that.

The look in her eyes… he'd seen that look before.

_ On Nikita._

* * *

Another side effect of getting shot – you tended to miss all the action whenever anything good happened.

Michael noticed the building shaking, sirens wailing, and flashing blue lights, but Medical was so far set apart from the rest of headquarters that it might as well have been its own little island. Needless to say, he was surprised – but not entirely shocked – when he saw Nikita run past through the window.

She stopped when she saw him, and for a moment, the two locked eyes. No words were spoken, but words were superfluous – they were Nikita and Michael, after all.

_**How did you get free?**_

_ How did you get hurt?_

_**How do you think you're going to escape?**_

_You think you can stop me?_

_**Who is your spy?**_

_Why are you still loyal to Division?_

_**You don't know what you're getting yourself into.**_

_ You have no idea what I'm capable of._

Of course, she was the first to look away, continuing to run in the opposite direction. The spell caused by Nikita's presence broken, Michael stumbled over to the phone, punching in the number for Percy's direct line. "Nikita's on five; moving to the central elevator. Lock it down."

* * *

On paper, it looked like everyone had won.

Thom was Nikita's spy, and now he was dead.

Alex was the one who had pulled the trigger, satisfying her requirements to graduate, and now she was an agent.

True, Nikita had escaped, but Michael knew they would never be able to contain her, no matter how hard Percy and Amanda tried. Doing so would be like playing with fire – she was simply too good, her rage and bloodlust fueling her strength and giving her an almost animalistic edge in combat. This latest stunt only proved it.

Division was in shambles. Thom had detonated two almost simultaneous explosions – with C4 stolen from Weapons by way of a key card taken from a security guard, which had been found in his pocket after his death – in the cafeteria and the air vents, leaving tons of debris and plaster to clean up. Then there was the rebooting and rewiring of all computer systems to erase anything else Nikita might have planted without their knowing (that'll be a fun couple days of work for Birkhoff…), along with sealing off Nikita's escape route and scouring the building for any more (since if they'd missed that one, it was quite possible that there were others).

Yet Percy was content to call it a victory. Nikita's mole was dead, her shell program compromised… how could she possibly continue to foil them now?

In some ways, Michael was satisfied with the conclusion of things as well. Alex had passed her test. It no longer mattered that she'd failed to kill Zoman; killing and unmasking Nikita's spy was worth far more points in Percy's eyes, and he'd promptly upgraded her as such. She was safe now – well, as safe as one could be in Division. Soon, she'd be back on the outside world, with a new apartment and a new cover life, away from Percy's prying eyes 24/7. Yes, it would be very easy to just walk away and say they'd won today.

But there was something ever so slightly off.

It was late that night, and Michael was at home (or rather, what passed for home these days – he moved around so much that the only real constant fixture in his life was the Division headquarters, but calling _that_ 'home' was just too damn depressing), nursing a beer. (He knew the doctors said he wasn't supposed to be drinking with the pills he was taking for his leg, but damn it, he wanted a beer, and after what happened today, he highly thought he deserved one.) Though he was trying hard to think about anything else, his thoughts kept coming back to the day's events.

It was all just too _convenient_. He'd been through everything at least a hundred times, yet it still felt like he was missing something – like there was something there that none of them were seeing, something huge that would shatter everything.

Michael thought back to the first mission Nikita had foiled – Black Arrow. Thom had been in on that. They'd fought again, in the aftermath of the death of that Russian spy girl who was having an affair with Percy's senator friend; she'd let him go then too. The key card had been in his pocket, and they'd found something else: a little piece of plastic with a fingerprint copied in eye shadow – Birkhoff's fingerprint. That would explain the incident with Percy's office from a few months ago. Yes, there was plenty of evidence to tie Thom to Nikita.

Maybe this sixth-sense feeling was just residual nerves from the chaos. Michael swallowed the last of his beer and lazily threw the empty bottle in the direction of the trash can. It missed, shattering against the wall with a loud _crash_. Grimacing, he slowly got to his feet and started to look for the broom.

Black Arrow, Black Arrow… He focused harder on that mission, while sweeping up the broken glass.

Thom had already been in training for a long time by Black Arrow. So why had he waited until then to start to slip Nikita info?

"Shit," Michael cursed softly, stepping on a piece of the glass – a pretty big one, though thankfully there was no blood.

Mind racing, he continued along that train of thought. That fact alone was weird, but it wasn't enough to prove that Thom wasn't the mole. There had to be more…

Nikita had known about Dadich. That was something. They'd been very careful dealing with him; only a few people had been privy to that information. Thom had decidedly _not_ been one of them. In fact, the only people who really knew were him, Percy, Birkhoff, a couple of security guards, and… _Alex_.

Michael shivered. This was a slippery slope he was heading towards. Still, he kept pushing forward, determined to find a reason for how Thom would've known about Dadich.

He remembered the car bomb exercise, where Alex had a panic attack… it had been Thom who pulled her out from under the car. The staged kidnapping – Alex had reacted violently to Thom's "death".

Whatever had happened between them – most likely against the rules – Michael knew he would be a hypocrite to look down on her for it, considering his own past. But at least that would explain Thom's source.

_Except wait – Alex didn't know about Dadich until she got there…_

Almost unbidden, his mind continued down that path. Alex had arrived at Division not long before Nikita reappeared. Alex had been friends with Sara, the girl sent on the suicide mission that Nikita had thwarted – would've cared about her safety. Alex, a girl with very little training, had somehow managed to subdue Nikita, and get out with no injuries. Alex had killed and unmasked Thom as the traitor, gaining a higher level of clearance in the process. Alex, who was reported to spend much of her free time in the computer labs…

The broom dropped to the floor with a semi-loud _thump_, rattling against tiny bits of broken glass still not swept up. But Michael barely even noticed.

Alex, Alex, Alex. Everything seemed to lead back to her.

The more he thought it through, the more it made perfect sense. The way she often seemed to know more than she should. Her time in the computer labs. How quickly she'd shot up the ranks of the recruits. The parallels to Nikita; of course they would be there, she'd been trained by the goddamn legend herself!

And today… they must have planned it, to save Alex's skin after she failed to kill Zoman. There was no way Alex was really able to overpower Nikita, despite her flimsy story about Nikita looking away for a gun. It was rather genius, actually; Alex had gained status in Percy's eyes for capturing Nikita, and then the explosions allowed Nikita to escape while everyone was caught off-guard.

So Thom was innocent, then. He'd probably figured it out, and Alex had seen an opportunity to pin the blame on someone else, since obviously there would have to be a scapegoat. She had been the one to pull the trigger; she could've easily planted the key card on him, and with no one else to see her do it, who could dispute her story?

Michael sank into the nearest chair, his brain still processing everything. It was amazing, really, how long they'd managed to hide this under everyone's noses for so long; Percy was totally clueless that his new golden girl was a spy.

So now came the big question: just what should he do about this new discovery?

The 'right' thing to do, of course, would be to tell Percy everything. But he couldn't shake this feeling that she would be more useful alive.

It was definitely dangerous – Percy would go ballistic if he knew that Michael was even_ considering_ it – but keeping Nikita's spy alive meant he had leverage on her. And no one would deny that _that_ was a good thing.

Besides, what if he was wrong? There was no tangible proof, after all, and if he essentially signed an innocent girl's death warrant and then found out he'd been wrong, the guilt would haunt him for the rest of his life – even worse than with Nikita.

So he made a decision. Until he had cold, hard, undeniable proof that Alex was working with Nikita, he would wait to say anything.

(What would happen if and when he found any was another story entirely…)

* * *

**Author's Note: So? Not bad, huh?**

**I'd like to think I got Michael's thought process at least _somewhat_ in character, given what he does with Amanda and the intervention thing, and how the first thing he does is go confront Nikita instead of turn Alex in. Sorry if Michael seems a little bit too Genre Savvy (go look up the term on tvtropes if you don't know what I'm talking about - shame on you, if you're a fanfiction author and have never heard of tvtropes!).**

**Technically, you could look at this as fitting in with canon - Michael certainly made a lot of loaded remarks in the last five episodes (I should know, I combed through them all looking for snippets to steal for Twisted), and that combined with the whole "wait to say anything" thing... you could work it that way. Or you could just treat it as an AU. Whatever. I just didn't want to dump this down the toilet completely, when I spent so much time on it.**

**Reviews are my lifeblood, and I seriously need some now - I'm already starting to go into Nikita withdrawal. (Why, why, _why_ are they going on hiatus again?)**

**See you around,**

**- Authoress**

**PS: Keep an eye out for my newest project, coming soon - a collaboration with MorningGloryBlue on a series of kisses in Nikita's life.**


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